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Today in 1782, French and Spanish forces launch the “Grand Assault” against Gibraltar, hoping to smash a British garrison that has already endured more than three years of siege.
Although remembered as the American War of Independence, the conflict has spread far beyond America. Spain’s ambitions include recovering Gibraltar, and the Rock’s defenders, commanded by General George Augustus Eliott, have faced blockade, bombardment and shortages since 1779.
The attackers’ great hope is a fleet of ten specially constructed floating batteries. These heavily protected vessels carry powerful guns close enough to batter Gibraltar’s seaward defences, while artillery on land adds its fire. Thick timber, protective packing and arrangements for circulating water are intended to keep the batteries from burning. Once the defences are broken, troops can move in.
Eliott’s gunners answer with cannonballs heated until red-hot. Handling these beside gunpowder is dangerous work, but a heated ball embedded deep inside a wooden vessel can start a fire beyond the reach of men trying to extinguish it.
Initially, the floating batteries withstand the punishment. As the bombardment continues, however, their protection proves inadequate. Fires take hold, spread through the vessels and turn the supposedly revolutionary weapons into blazing traps.
During the night and into 14 September, the assault collapses amid burning wrecks and explosions. All ten floating batteries are lost, either destroyed or abandoned and scuttled.
Then comes a remarkable change of task. Royal Navy boats under Captain Roger Curtis, which have been fighting the batteries, begin rescuing their crews. Hundreds of enemy sailors are pulled from the water despite the danger from the burning vessels.
The Grand Assault has failed, but the siege is not yet over. Admiral Richard Howe brings in another vital relief convoy in October, and the blockade finally ends in February 1783.
After more than three and a half years, Gibraltar remains in British hands
Credit: Fact Slap
Elmer holding the model 29 used for shooting the mule deer at 600 yards.
Once in a lifetime, if we’re lucky, a true phenom raises the bar of excellence, performing feats so unbelievable that half the people hearing these feats think the person is lying, stretching the truth, or surely “fudging the facts” a bit.
This was the case with Elmer Keith. One of the most called-on instances in which Keith was called an outright liar is the 600-yard running mule deer incident. For those not familiar, let me refresh your memory.
Elmer and Judge Don Martin enjoying a smoke on the porch.
600 Yards?
Keith grew up hunting grouse and rabbits with a .32-20 sixgun. In his late teens and early twenties, he was a member of the Idaho National Guard Rifle team, competing at Camp Perry for several years, where he routinely shot out to 600 yards or more on different courses of fire.
So, Elmer was familiar with what 600 yards looked like. Secondly, he knew the terrain very well on which the miraculous mule deer shots occurred, having hunted on the property numerous times.
Lastly, Keith shot the same gun, a 6.5” S&W .44 Magnum and ammo, Remington 250-grain factory ammunition, just days prior to the hunt. Keith was driving with his friend, Judge Don Martin. “I spotted a rock at what looked like 500 yards from the road. I told Don to stop the car and turn off the motor. The rock was about 3 feet long and 18” high,” Keith recounted.
“I rested my arms out the window, held up some front sight and tried it. It was low. I held up more front sight and managed to hit the rock the next five shots. Judge Don Martin said I seen it, but still don’t believe it.”
If you can’t believe a judge, who can you believe? Both Keith and Judge Martin paced the distance off to the rock twice, getting the same distance both times.
Elmer demonstrating the sitting position with his Winchester model 70 .375 H&H.
Jack Shooter
Keith was hunting jackrabbits with Judge Don Martin, publisher Bob Petersen and editor Tom Siatos. As Petersen and Siatos beat the brush in the Pahsimeroi valley, Keith and Judge Martin drove the roads in a Jeep, looking for targets of opportunity. A large jack took off behind him and the judge, but Keith decided to try for him anyway. He got his sights on the jack, swung forward and fired, just missing him.
The elevation was good, but the shot was behind him. Keith tried again, leading a little further, narrowly missing again. On the third shot, Keith rolled the large jack. Don Martin exclaimed, “If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it.” Later, an incident occurred that was more unbelievable than Keith’s 600-yard mule deer shot.
Keith shooting prone with his .375 H&H.
Five in One
“Don and I waited in the car. Siatos and Petersen jumped a big old jackrabbit. The range looked to be 100 yards, but the rabbit was running all out. I got on the rabbit, started my trigger squeeze, swung the sights well ahead, and just as the rabbit crossed the white line in the road, the gun went off, and the hare flew.”
Again, Judge Martin said, “If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t believe it.”
“The Remington 250-grain gas-checked slug caught the rabbit through the middle of the back. When Keith picked up the jackrabbit by the ears, four young rabbits fell out of it. I wrote it up as killing five rabbits running all out with one shot, and have been called a liar ever since.”
Remington factory load Keith used for the 600 yard shot on mule deer.
On Long Range Shooting
Keith was a master at long-range shooting. His technique was sound and simple. For sight alignment, he would perch the top of the front sight above the top of the rear sight while keeping the front sight centered in the rear sight notch. The further the target, the higher the front sight was held.
He then perched his target on top of the front sight blade. Keith preferred a flat on top of his front sight, saying it was easier to maintain a steady sight picture. This makes sense, as the flat provides a larger surface for holding elevation than the smaller arc of a rounded top front sight. The flat top front sight is easier on the eyes at greater distances.
Fun Facts
Skeeter Skelton’s famous “Skeeter Load” consisting of 7.5 grains of Unique with a Lyman 429421 was given to Skeeter by Keith when Skeeter summoned him for a good load for the .44 Special. Skeeter’s warm personality and writing style made people associate the famous load with him.
Keith also had some input in the development of the famous rifleman’s rifle, the pre-64 Winchester Model 70. He received a Model 70 in both .375 H&H and .300 H&H Magnum as a gift from Winchester. Keith described the .375 H&H as having a straight tapered 24-inch barrel and having an ivory-tipped stock.
Keith once fired a 16-shot group measuring 1 9/16ths inch at 200 yards with his .375 H&H, which had a fixed Weaver 330 scope mounted with Stith mounts. Keith stated he would fire two shots, walk to the target, check the impact, walk back, and fire two more, until he fired a total of 16 shots, during a snowstorm. The group measured 1 9/16ths inches, center to center at the widest bullet holes using Winchester 300-grain soft-nose factory ammunition.
.44 Magnum
Keith didn’t invent the .44 Magnum, per se, but he planted the seeds for its development. He wanted a manufacturer to load his heavy .44 Special loads, which drove 250-grain cast slugs to 1,200 fps. The ammo companies were wary of such loads fired in older .44 Special guns. Remington, in partnership with S&W, came out with the .44 Magnum, which has a cartridge case 1/10th of an inch longer than .44 Special brass, so it couldn’t be loaded in the older .44 Special guns.
Kieth had several other accomplishments credited to his name. He helped design the .338 Winchester Magnum, several Lyman bullet molds, and, like the .44 Magnum, he planted the seeds for the .357 Magnum with his hotly loaded .38 Special loads consisting of his bullet design Lyman 358429 and 13.5 grains of old Hercules 2400 powder.
Fuddy Dud?
If Keith’s old ways make him a fuddy dud in the eyes of today’s younger shooters, well, count me one as well. I’ll wear the title proudly! There will never be another Elmer Keith. We barely scratched the surface of all he accomplished in his lifetime. Just about any subject covered today was covered by Keith in one way or another.
While some may question his claims, I believe every morsel. Everyone is born with a gift, and Keith was blessed with superior vision, great hand-eye coordination and a mind made for calculating anything related to shooting sixgun, rifle, or shotgun. We could use more fudds and fewer tactical commandos in this world.
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The Biggest Bomb of WWII
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Loading the Krag
Here we have a pair of short-action gems, and two of the handiest cartridges ever to grace the deer woods. Both are are easy to shoot, can be housed in easy-to-carry, lightweight rifles and neither cartridge requires a country mile of barrel length to get the best performance. One was bred for war, and the other was a target cartridge, but both serve the hunter well, especially as an all-around rifle. Let’s look at the pros and cons of both cartridges, to see what they do and don’t have to offer.
The .308 Winchester was released as a sporting cartridge before it was officially adopted as a military round; the comparisons between the new, shorter case and the .30-06 Springfield were immediate, and continue to this day. Using the same .473-inch case head diameter of the Springfield (which in turn was borrowed from the 8x57mm Mauser, the Patrone 88 design), the .308 Winchester uses a case measuring 2.015 inches, in comparison to the Springfield’s 2.494 inches. The .308’s overall length is 2.800 inches, compared to the Springfield’s 3.340 inches; those two measurements have come to define our short- and long-action rifle receivers, respectively.
Equipped with a 1:12ʺ twist rate on most of the early rifles, the .308 Winchester could stabilize bullets weighing up to 200 grains; the heavy 220-grain round nose requires a 1:10ʺ twist to be properly stabilized. The .308 works very well with bullets in the range of 125 to 200 grains, with the 150-, 165- and 180-grain choices being the most popular. The rimless case uses a 20-degree shoulder for headspacing, and has a neck measuring 0.303-inch, or just short of one caliber, sufficient to hold bullets in place without needing a heavy roll crimp.
The 165-grain load—probably the most popular of the lot—leaves the muzzle at between 2650 and 2700 fps, depending on the load and the rifle. With a 200-yard zero, a decent spitzer will drop 9 inches at 300 yards and 26 inches at 400 yards, making it a solid contender for an all-around big-game rifle.
The lighter 150-grain loads make a sound choice for deer and antelope hunters, and for those who want to take their .308 for heavier game like moose, elk and bear, there are a good number of 180- and 200-grain loads to choose from.
Just a few years after the introduction of the .308, the wildcatters mated the case with 7mm bullets. The 7mm/308 wildcat showed all kinds of promise, especially among the target shooters who appreciate any reduction in recoil.
It stayed a wildcat for over two decades until Remington—long famous for adopting wildcat cartridges like the .257 Roberts, .22-250 Remington, .25-06 Remington and .35 Whelen—made an honest cartridge out of the 7mm/308; in 1980, the 7mm-08 Remington saw the light of day.
The 7mm-08 case is just slightly longer than the parent .308—2.035 inches vs. 2.015 inches—but maintains the same 20-degree shoulder of the .308 Winchester. The 7mm-08 can use the full spectrum of 7mm bullets, from the short, frangible 100-grain hollowpoints designed for varmints, up through the 120-, 140- and 150-grain bullets which handle deer and similar-sized game so well, to the heavier 160- and 175-grain projectiles that will sort out moose, elk and black bear.
The 140-grain loads—the most popular among the factory loads for the 7mm-08—leave the muzzle at right around 2800 fps, and with a 200-yard zero, will drop 8 inches at 300 yards, and 24 inches at 400 yards.
You can see the similarity in trajectory with the 165-grain .308 load, as both the 140-grain 7mm bullet and 165-grain .308-inch bullet share the same sectional density at .248. With comparable muzzle velocities (the 7mm-08 is a bit faster with the 140-grain load) the difference in holdover is negligible.
The difference between these two cartridges is going to come down to a couple of simple questions. Do you, as the prospective owner of one or the other of these cartridges, prefer 7mm bore diameter over .30 caliber, or vice versa? And, does the increase in felt recoil of the .308 Winchester make a difference?
Tackling the latter question first, I can report that there is a noticeable difference in felt recoil between the two—not enough to make me think twice about it, but it is there. If you’re considering one of the two for a young hunter, the 7mm-08 Remington will be easier to master.
Regarding the bullet diameter issue, the 7mm versus .308-inch debate has raged for over a century, with no apparent victor. In the case of these two cartridges, the choices top out at 175 grains in 7mm and 200 grains in .30; I suppose the decision could come down to whether or not you intend to use the heaviest bullets for the respective calibers, and use them routinely.
With modern bullet construction, the premium 160-grain 7mm bullets and 180-grain .30-caliber bullets are no joke at all, and will probably handle any game animal you’d hunt using either bore diameter. If you felt you needed a bit more, a premium 175-grain 7mm or 200-grain .30 would make serious medicine, albeit at a lesser velocity.
I have spent decades behind the trigger of a .308 Winchester, having used my Ruger 77 MKII since 1993 for all sorts of hunting here in New York and abroad, as well. I’ve used that rifle for factory ammunition testing, as well as developing dozens of handloads for it.
I’ve also acquired a sweet Tikka T3 Lite in 7mm-08 Remington, and have spent a considerable amount of time with that rifle, with both factory loads and handloads. For my own hunting, I’d feel comfortable taking either afield.
The .308 is the more popular of the two cartridges, based on the availability of surplus ammunition, and its military background. The 7mm-08 gives better ballistic coefficient and sectional density values when comparing bullets of the same weight, the .308 will offer a greater frontal diameter. Which gets the nod?
I’ve got to give it to the .308 Winchester, and only by a hair, because of the wide array of rifles and ammo available just about anywhere.
I was raised on a .303—my Dad has shot the same Mossberg Model 100A in .308 since he got out of boot camp in 1969—and with a proper bullet, it can do just about anything you’d ask it to. That said, if I were shopping for a rifle and found one that fit me well, and I loved, but was chambered in 7mm-08 Remington instead of .308, I’d be bringing it to the checkout counter without hesitation.
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Well she looks like a good time to me!
This is John Fairfax and his rowing partner Sylvia Cook. They were both pretty darn crazy.
Wikipedia photo by Virgil Lucky.
I like to think of myself as a pretty normal guy. I have had some adventures in life, to be sure. However, I’ve never wrestled crocodiles in the Arctic or voluntarily swum with shrieking eels. My baser drives are tempered with a sensible instinct for self-preservation.
Sometimes folks just aren’t wired like the rest of us. Their survival safety valve just seems to be somehow stuck in the off position. These are the young men who improvise parachutes out of bed sheets and then leap off of tall buildings. Many, if not most, of them are hors de combat by their early twenties, succumbing to their poor life choices.
These unfortunate daredevils often die young and gloriously. Their last words are typically, “Hey, dude, check this out …” or “Yo, bro, hold my beer …” One such remarkable young man who actually survived to see adulthood was a full-time professional lunatic named John Fairfax.
Apparently rowing across oceans is a thing people do. That seems legit insane to me. Wikipedia photo by Fiann Paul.
The Maniac Sees the World
In 1959, John Fairfax took a plane to New York City with the intent of experiencing America. He drove from New York to San Francisco, sampling our amazing expansive country as he went. By the time he made it to California, he was broke as a skunk. He still somehow scored a bicycle and then headed south. His nebulous goal was to make his way back to Argentina to reconnect with his mother … on a bicycle. Fairfax biked as far as Guatemala, then hitchhiked his way to Panama. Following another brief foray into piracy, he made the last leg to Argentina on horseback.
Once reestablished in Argentina, Fairfax became consumed with the idea of rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean. This is the sort of thing normal people just read about. John Fairfax figured he’d actually give it a go. No one had ever done this before, so he would have to hustle if he wanted to be the first.
Fairfax obtained passage to England and spent two years in preparation for the voyage. He secured a custom-built, self-righting, self-bailing rowboat, which he christened Britannia, and struck out from the Canary Islands headed west. 180 days later, on 19 July 1969, he made landfall in Florida. The following day, the crew of Apollo 11 walked on the moon. He later received a congratulatory letter from the NASA astronauts that read, “Yours, however, was the accomplishment of one resourceful individual, while ours depended upon the help of thousands of dedicated workers in the United States and all over the world. As fellow explorers, we salute you on this great occasion.”
Just the Beginning …
So, what does a guy do after becoming the first man to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean? He naturally makes his way across the United States to attempt the same thing in the Pacific. However, this was a considerably bigger deal.
For starters, the Pacific Ocean is a good bit larger than the Atlantic. Though I’ve never personally had the pleasure, I’m told this trek is also substantially more arduous. Before he embarked on this crossing, he needed both a new boat and a stalwart companion. He christened the boat Britannia II. He found his rowing buddy by taking out a personal ad in The Times.
Sylvia Cook answered the advert. Sylvia seemed like a pretty normal Englishwoman right up until she agreed to climb in a tandem rowboat with a crazy person and strike out from San Francisco. The pair made landfall on Hayman Island in Australia 361 days later. They were the first humans to row all the way across the Pacific. Cook became the first woman to row across any of the planet’s several oceans.
Ummm….nope. YouTube frame grab.
The Rest of the Story
John Fairfax was actually married to his wife Tiffany for 31 years. That has got to have been a most remarkable woman. The couple settled in Florida but moved to Nevada after a hurricane wiped them out. Tiffany penned an astrology column for a Las Vegas newspaper for years.
Fairfax was a recognized expert at baccarat, becoming a fixture at Las Vegas casinos. This man, who once attempted suicide by jaguar and actually rowed his way across both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, died of natural causes in Henderson, Nevada, in 2012. He was 74 years old. John Fairfax packed enough living in those 74 years to shame a hundred normal men.